(accidentally hit enter)..cont..This picture really brings out brings out a visual element of the series for me. Thank you for this very striking and vivid image. Hopefully you can add this to redbubble as I would definately like to pick it up as a gift for someone.

11/13/18

I've created a lot of very different plants using Plant Factory and I've used it to create some interesting "non-plant" objects (tornadoes, aurora, and snow for example). This time I wanted to see if I could use Plant Factory to model a spiral galaxy.

The galaxy object was rendered in Vue (I also experimented using Lightwave) and then that was used as a background for the scene you see here. I hope you enjoy it!

11/1/18

"Three Moon Bay" naturally lent itself to a sunny daytime view. I tried something a bit different with the water in Vue with this one. Usually I set the water to absorb sunlight, resulting a darker and more reflective ocean. This time I set it to scatter the light so the water is a bit brighter.

10/19/18

Hard to believe that I've made at least one Halloween render every year since 1998. Sure, some of the early ones look pretty rough (as my boys have been reminding my lately) but I think looking at the whole collection shows a pretty good cross-section of my growth as an artist over the years.

If you look at my top Halloween images you will notice that the top rated renders can be used as wallpapers any time of the year. I've tried to go that route with "Harvest Moon", my (first) Halloween(ish) offering of 2018. I hope you enjoy it.

10/12/18

It seemed like a good idea to attempt an autumn version of "Sliver of Sun" even though it's a high altitude landscape and the trees aren't your usual colorful deciduous varieties. Honestly I think it turned out OK but it isn't really my favorite Autumn render. The camera is quite far from the trees here an I think the intervening haze mutes the colors a bit.

10/08/18

The original idea here was to create a "metallic flower" using Plant Factory. Tried rendering it using Vue but decided that Lightwave allowed me a bit more freedom to get the look I wanted. Of course I decided certain parts needed to glow :-)

10/01/18

After a few more natural-looking Autumn landscapes I thought it might be a good time to journey offworld for brief excursion. Like many of my planetscapes this one started life as a space only scene which I then used as a backdrop in Vue.

09/21/18

These tree models were created in Plant Factory to add to "Ethos (Autumn)". I put together this simple scene to test out how they look "close up" and figured it looked interesting enough to post in the gallery.

09/16/18

I'd always planned to do a day version of "Ethos" and, looking at the calendar, it made perfect sense to set the scene in Autumn. In case you are wondering, I added some foliage to this version as I thought the original (while it worked for a night scene) was a little bare looking for this purpose.

09/05/18

Playing around with the flower models I created for "Biome" here to create something more translucent, crystalline and colorful. I modeled the "crater" using Medium to give the blooms a dark neutral surrounding. I created three different versions (the other two are in the Pickle Jar) and asked my son Jason which he preferred for the gallery. This is the one he picked :-)

08/28/18

I started this scene around the same time as "Ethos", again using objects that I modeled using Oculus Medium. The plant life was all custom modeled using Plant Factory. For some reason this scene took an obscenely long time to render but I hope you guys feel it was worth the wait.

08/21/18

More work with Oculus Medium creating a cave opening. There's actually quite a bit in the background but for now I've chosen to hide most of it in a dense mist. Hopefully the bits that show through are enough of a hint at what lies beyond. Maybe I will show a bit of more of it if I do an autumn version...

08/12/18

I've read out-loud to my boys nearly every night since they were born. It's just something we've kept up even as they have become teenagers, always finding a next book to read. Over the years we've moved from Dr. Suess and Margaret Wise Brown to L Frank Baum and Brandon Mull, from Lloyd Alexander to Neil Gaiman. The past few months we've been enjoying Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn' and "Stormlight Archive".

We've been reading "Oathbringer" lately and a description of the "cognitive realm" called "Shadesmar" really got stuck in my circuits. Without giving away too much, it's a dark land of black obsidian with colorful crystal trees (and lots of spirits). I thought it would make an interesting challenge to render. Learned quite a bit in Plant Factory about wind and controlling leaf color.

I don't know how many more books Ian and Jason will want me to read as they get older. I'll keep at it as long as they want me to. When they finally do move on I will have this scene to remind me of our bedtime ritual.